This invention relates to a pump apparatus for evacuating containers. The invention is particularly adapted to evacuate air from food storage containers, such as jars and plastic bags.
The prior art is prolific in patents that disclose various types of pumps for evacuating air from food containers. The most pertinent patents to the present invention are believed to be the following:
Gill, U.S. Pat. No. 29,582 PA1 Winters, U.S. Pat. No. 638,383 PA1 Desmond, U.S. Pat. No. 882,874 PA1 Staunton, U.S. Pat. No. 1,601,705 PA1 Herzog, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,401,638 PA1 Crook, U.S. Pat. No. 2,648,474 PA1 Haley, U.S. Pat. No. 2,695,741 PA1 Reisinger, U.S. Pat. No. 3,312,256 PA1 Katell, U.S. Pat. No. 3,313,444 PA1 Ruberg, U.S. Pat. No. 4,278,114 PA1 Maruscak, U.S. Pat. No. 4,337,804 PA1 Scanlan, U.S. Pat. No. 4,478,025 PA1 von Bismarck, U.S. Pat. No. 4,575,990 PA1 Hawkins, U.S. Pat. No. 4,583,925 PA1 Bartle, St., U.S. Pat. No. 4,745,730 PA1 European Patent No. 0 117 247 PA1 German Patent No. 33 35 001 PA1 Swiss Patent No. 200,360
These patents disclose pumps for evacuating either rigid containers (jars) or deformable containers (plastic bags), but not both. Additionally, the arrangements most pertinent to this invention employ complex and difficult to apply check valves to the covers (or lids) of rigid containers to be evacuated.
The present invention is an improvement on my U.S. Pat. No. 4,975,028 and portions of the specification thereof have been included in this application.
The pump apparatus in my prior patent consists of three principal components; in particular, (1) a specially designed disposable/reusable, pressure-sensitive, adhesive-tape check valve that adheres to a container lid and covers a small air evacuating hole, (2) a reciprocating two-stroke piston pump that features an efficient piston check-valve and a vacuum cup which cooperate with plugable porting to provide for evacuation of both rigid and deformable containers, and (3) an accessory probe which is plugged into a side plugable port of the pump to evacuate deformable containers such as plastic bags, while the bottom plugable port is plugged.
With this pump apparatus, a jar can be reused thousands of times to store anything that will fit and which will keep better in a vacuum. The apparatus also pulls a vacuum on an ordinary plastic zipper-lock type bag and allows the zipper to be closed without losing the vacuum. The apparatus will also evacuate many leak proof bags that might be sealed with a commercial home-style hot-sealing machine.
While my prior patented design works well and has achieved considerable commercial success, I have devised an improved pumping system that eliminates the need for a check valve in the flexible probe assembly and the requirement for a removable plug to maintain cup suction. The prior in-line check valve has many parts and is difficult to manufacture and expensive to purchase preassembled. The removable plug works well in maintaining suction in the cup but it is easily lost and its use requires careful operator instruction.
Therefore, it would be desirable, and it is the principal object of the present invention to not only eliminate the need for the in-line check valve in the flexible probe assembly and the removable plug for vacuum cup, but also to provide an evacuation apparatus that is simpler to use and requires less operator instruction.
A principal object of this invention is to provide relatively simple, inexpensive and effective apparatus for evacuating both rigid and deformable containers, such as jars with lids and also plastic bags.